June 7, 2014

Seeking God's Story

Sunset circa 1982

I have spent the last 5 years or so of my life trying to
build a story. Not just any story…my story. I finished school early…high
school & college…for the sake of the next adventures. I’ve traveled to
foreign countries and I’ve lived in Central America. I left home at 18 and worked
for a mouse. I ran races and sometimes I finished dead last, but I ran them nonetheless.
I’ve jumped out of planes and I’m still itching to do it again. I met the man
who was able to steal my cynical, guarded, skeptical heart…and it has never
even crossed my mind to think that it might have been crazy to have married
him. I’ve loved friends who haven’t loved me back and I’ve been loved by people
whom I should have loved better. In the past 5 years of my life, I have been
consciously trying to create “me”.In a
family filled with stories, tales that dive into world travels, interesting
people, and raw reality…I have been desperate to have something to say for
myself. I have wanted a story that is so obviously daring, courageous, and
adventurous that people can’t help but say, “Wow. She’s done things.”

I want to be somebody. Somebody who is undeniably somebody.
I want to smell like exotic Indian spices and have dirt behind my ears from
crawling through Maya caves. I want to attend a ball in Austria and dance in
the street in Spain (despite my lack of dancing feet.) I want to celebrate
Christmas in Switzerland, nestled by a warm fire while the snow
swirls outside. I want to eat real Italian food in Italy and maybe swing
through the Middle East for a tour of the Holy Land. I want to be sunburned in
Africa, serving alongside the people who are ingrained in my heritage and
written across my heart. I want to be coated in dust, worn thin, tired,
stretched to my limit, and so completely sure that I am where I am supposed to
be.

I want to be somebody
who doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody.

Over the past few weeks, an accumulation of events has led
to me a desert ground. Not a dessert ground, as much as I love chocolate
cake…but a dusty, dry, barren desert ground in my heart. On one hand, I have
felt so sure that this where I am supposed to be. Right here, in Oklahoma…for
the time being. Yet on the other hand, my heart has been weary, worn thin, and
life has ceased to make sense. I have
questioned things that I have never questioned before and I have grown tired
waiting for answers that I know I will never get.

Why do we have so many
material things? How can a million people live in the same city and not feel
the weight of humanity on their shoulders? Why do bad things happen to good
people? Why do parents have to bury their children and why do friends have to
grapple with words like “cancer”?

Why? Why? WHY.

In the midst of my culture shock, life changes, and grief
observed…I have prayed and yelled and screamed at God. But mostly, I’ve sat
back and told Him, “This just doesn’t make sense right now. It doesn’t make
sense.” I’ve said those words over and over again, hoping that maybe, if I say
them enough, something will begin to make sense… and God has been gracious to
me. He promised that he would be close to the broken hearted and, although I
have struggled and groveled in desperateness…I have felt the full
assurance that someday, things will make
sense. Someday, if not on this world then in the next, the veil will be
withdrawn and I will see clearly.

As I have questioned and begged and cried out to God, over
and over again I have returned to the place where I have said, “I want to know You.” If I am going to choose to believe
in something that cannot be anything less than my everything, I want to know God. My story, everything that I have
ever wanted to be, has seemed more and more insignificant under the light of
knowing God’s story. Knowing Him.
All of my life, I have been wanting to build my story, as if it were mine to
build. As if the puzzle pieces are moved around by me and I choose what the
finished picture will look like. I have wanted everyone to see “me”, to see how
good I am at putting together puzzles and to applaud my job well done. But
that’s not how life works. My puzzle? I don’t know what the finished picture
will be. Right now there are a million pieces all scrambled together that somehow
don’t make sense. And still, I choose to believe that there will be a finished
picture. I choose to believe that this small piece of life that I can see right
now, filled with uncertainty, with new plans, with pain, and with joy…. I
choose to believe that these are only the smallest images of what is and
what is to come.

My story is insignificant compared to the greater story that
is being told. There have been moments recently, in the midst of my
questioning, when people on whom I have no claim have upheld me. They have
reassured me without knowing they were doing so. They have affirmed me without
knowing that I needed to affirmed. They have allowed me to catch the glimpses of
heaven that I have so desperately longed to see. As I have struggled, I
have equally been upheld. As I have cried, I have equally felt the joy of
community. As I have questioned, I have been encouraged to find answers. The
puzzle is being made with every breath I breathe and I have no idea what the
finished picture will be, but I choose to believe that someday, I will be
allowed to see it in all of its beauty.

My prayer, no my plea, remains the same, "Come quickly Jesus, please please please." As I stutter and stammer through this mystery of life, and as the "bigger picture" sometimes looks crystal clear but often looks so murky...I hold on to what I know to be true when I do not feel it to be true. I cannot wait for the story to be completed. For the painting to be revealed. For the purpose of pain to suddenly make so much sense. I cannot wait to have answers and to not feel the need for them any longer. I cannot wait until the day when Heaven meets earth. Unashamedly, I cannot wait. But I will wait, for however long I must, because I know that I know that I know...God is faithful. In the storms, in the sunshine, in times of action, and in moments of stillness...He is writing a story that is beautiful and beyond descriptions. A story that is worth waiting for. A story that will bring us to our knees as we can't help but exclaim,

"Wow. He has done great things."

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me completely.